The Readers Cosmos is in the list of Top Indian Blogs since 2012!

My Book Shelf

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Nostalgia: Diwali A Time For Family #GharwaliDiwali

I love family gatherings especially the festive ones, mostly because family to me means meeting my grandparents and elders who would teach me a thing or two about our mythology, culture and religion, which I had previously unknown. This year being a final year of my PhD I shall not be going home for Diwali and so here is my tribute to the ones I spent earlier especially the childhood times with my maternal grandmother.

As a child my utmost enthusiasm was in buying the crackers and just to prove I was the bravest amongst my cousins buy the most dangerous ones, only to be scolded by may parents again. But the earthlings started contaminating the planet and therefore me and my brother educated other people years ago not to use crackers and so that fun went away. But I still miss the fuljhadi, chakri and rocket. Rockets are nasty and you can really scare people by flying them.

The Food: The next part comes the sweets and while mom makes a few of them really well, my cousin aunt makes some more out of the world. The head of the gang is my maternal grandmother who can even make shrikhand, jalebi's, and Gujrati khajas very famous in surat). Being a child that has spent most of the time studying in hostel, Diwali time is nirvana for the soul. The other dishes my grandmother makes amazingly well is Khandvi (lovers of gujju food I am sure your mouth is watering), Khaman, Dhokla, Patra, Undhitu, Fafda, etc. Well my Jijaji came to India from the USA during Diwali and they put on 10 kgs in 2 months so you can imagine how delicious and irresistible her food is.

The Puja: Our Kuldevi is Bhavani ma, a version of the Ma shakti or Parvati, the goddess of power. On the Kali Chaudash day we celebrate it with decorating the entire temple with diya's and sing thaal dharavanubhajan , other bhajans and the most important one being the main aarti. The temple looks amazing and when the aarti begins you are transformed into another world. One of the purest forms of divine intervention I felt on this day. I love this puja over any other in the festive season obviously.

This year since my family is not with me we shall be celebrating it with friends and all time party partner #Pepsi. Check how you can always celebrate with pepsi https://www.gharwalidiwali.com/

I understand that Pepsi tries to bring people together through this video and I wish it was always possible. My grandma is now is in Australia and there is no way I can reach her. The Diwali was in our ancestral village where nobody lives now so cant go back. In the urban world, living our modern lives I miss on every festival the togetherness our simpler lives offered which is elusive now. I am not sure for how long world will be same, things here will be similar but as much as we can try to make the best out of times spent with family, they never come back in the same setting, either its a different place or a set of those people have gone to another world.